Once they complete an associate or bachelor's degree and become certified, registered nurses specialize in a number of different areas. Pediatric nurses work primarily with children, infants and adolescents. While RNs do not need to be specialty-certified in order to work in pediatric settings, those who are certified in pediatrics tend to earn substantially more.

Average Nursing Pay in the United States

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, registered nurses earned an average of $33.23 per hour across all specialties as of May 2011, and a mean annual income of about $69,110. However, the practice area of a nurse can have a large impact on expected salary. A salary survey conducted by RN Magazine in April 2009 found that pediatric nurses earned an average of $31 per hour, similar to the average hourly pay earned by RNs specializing in oncology and ambulatory surgery. By comparison, geriatric nurses reported an average wage of just $22 per hour in 2009, while outpatient nurses reported a very high average hourly pay of $39.

Non-Certified Pediatric Nurses

A 2011 salary survey of different nursing specialties in the United States, conducted by the website ADVANCE for Nursing, found that nurses who worked primarily in pediatrics but were not certified in pediatrics reported average pay ranging from $29.30 per hour and $53,313 per year in the Southeast to a high of $56 per hour and $95,333 per year in the West. Those in the Northeast averaged $32.02 per hour and those in the Midwest $32.47 per hour, while those working in the Mid-Atlantic and lower Great Lakes states averaged $33.26 per hour.

Specialty-Certified Pediatric Nurses

Although the ADVANCE survey indicated that non-certified pediatric nurses in the West actually outearned their certified counterparts by about $8.50 per hour in 2011, the same survey confirmed that specialty-certified pediatric nurses earn more in most parts of the country. For example, specialty-certified pediatric nurses in the Northeast averaged $42.89 per hour, $10.87 more than those who were not specialty-certified. Specialty-certified pediatric nurses in the Mid-Atlantic and lower Great Lakes states averaged $5.31 more per hour than non-certified RNs, and those in the Southeast outearned their non-certified peers by $7.54 per hour on average.

Other Factors Affecting Pay

While chosen specialty is a good indicator of the pay rate a nurse can expect, it is not the only factor affecting wages. One of the most important factors affecting pay is experience; RN magazine found that nurses just starting their careers averaged $23 per hour in 2009, while those with 35 or more years of experience were earning an average of $38 per hour. Education can also make a difference; while those with a bachelor's degree or less averaged between $63,000 and $66,000 per year, those with a master's degree reported an average salary of $72,601 per year, and those with a doctorate averaged $79,170 per year.